Tagged: Afghanistan

Governor Jay Nixon is in Afghanistan visiting members of the Missouri National Guard who won’t be home for the holidays.

While the headlines proclaim that thanks to a new draft agreement the U.S. will continue to defend Afghanistan for a decade after the planned 2014 withdrawal of foreign combat forces from that country, the stories themselves make clear that many of the key details remain to be worked out:

Kansas City, MO – A second Kansas City area soldier has died this week of wounds suffered in Afghanistan. 32 year old Staff Sergeant Shaun Mittler was born in North Kansas City and raised in Gladstone , according to the Defense Department.

Mittler was serving with the 101st Airborne Division when his unit was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and rifle fire. He died last Saturday.

Mittler served in the Kansas National Guard, then reenlisted in the regular army after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Kansas City, MO – A Kansas City Missouri Army National Guard Soldier has been killed in Afghanistan doing one of the more dangerous combat jobs .

Robert W. Crow was 42 years old and a sergeant.

Crow had gone to Afghanistan when his unit, the 203rd Engineer Battalion of Joplin deployed last September. His home unit of combat engineers was the 1141st Engineer company of Kansas City which he joined in 2005.The job of his unit was clearing improvised explosive devices from roadways.The soldiers are commonly called sappers.